Decades pass, but Koreans hold hope for reunions

`In 15 years, there will be no such thing as "separated families." We will all be gone.'

Saemsori Project seeks to link families

April 13, 2006|By Oscar Avila, Tribune staff reporter.

Among the mysteries hidden behind North Korea's wall of isolation is a painful one carried by a frail 83-year-old Korean immigrant in an Uptown nursing home: What became of my children?

Lee Un-Chin left her three children with their grandmother in North Korea when she and her husband began the family's relocation to South Korea 56 years ago. Then the Korean War began. Then the Koreas, and the Lees, were torn apart by a wall of soldiers and barbed wire.

Lee never heard from her children again.

Realizing that Koreans of Lee's age may not have a chance to reunite, members of Congress and Korean-American activists have began a new push to bring families together.

The Saemsori Project, which comes to Chicago on Thursday, aims to create a nationwide database of the thousands of Korean-American families who believe they have relatives in North Korea. Organizers also hope to pressure the U.S. and North Korean governments to allow families to reunite, at least briefly.

In her desperation, Lee once persuaded a missionary to deliver a message to a brother still in North Korea. Another friend even tried the ultimate long-shot: sending a letter directly to dictator Kim-Jong Il.

Neither attempt succeeded.

Asked about her own children's fate, Lee breaks into uncontrollable sobs. "I think about my children every day," she said through a translator.

The reunification project has spotlighted the pain of one of the world's last Cold War conflicts.

The division of the Korean peninsula began after World War II. In 1950, North Korean forces armed by the Soviet Union crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. United Nations troops, led by U.S. forces, drove the North Koreans back and fought a bloody three-year stalemate.

After the war's end in 1953, the Koreas were once again divided into two dictatorships. South Korea democratized in the 1980s, but North Korea remains a dictatorship labeled as part of President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil." Residents of North Korea were prevented from leaving and were shut off from the outside world.

In 2000, North Korea agreed to let some of its citizens have one-time supervised reunions with relatives in South Korea. Since then, about 11,000 South Koreans have had brief reunions; others have participated in virtual reunions via videoconferencing, according to activist groups.

But South Korea has brokered reunions only for its own citizens, said Alice Suh, director of the Maryland-based Saemsori Project, named for a Korean word for "the sound of a stream."

Only a few dozen Korean Americans have reunited with North Korean relatives by latching onto reunions organized by South Korean family members, Suh said.

Frustrated that Korean Americans were being shut out, Chicago librarian Cha-hee Lee Stanfield helped organize a delegation of families who met with then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. She said U.S. officials promised to intervene, but relatives have become frustrated that the matter has faded as the Bush administration focuses on North Korea's nuclear program.

Three years ago, Stanfield initially identified five Chicago residents with relatives in North Korea. Since then, three have died, one has been sick in a nursing home and one has moved out of the state.

"Time is running out," said Stanfield, a member of the Korean-American Coalition of the Midwest, which has helped fund Saemsori. "In 15 years, there will be no such thing as `separated families.' We will all be gone."

Stanfield, 65, already has lost time. She was born in China and lived there with her family during World War II. When that war ended, she returned to South Korea with her siblings and mother. Her father and brother moved to North Korea and never got out after the Korean War.

In an example of the schisms confronting countless families, one of Stanfield's brothers fought for North Korea and three others fought for South Korea, she said.

Her father, Lee Sang-Moon, has already died. She thinks her brother might still be alive.

Saemsori will collect oral and video histories from separated families. Organizers also are placing names in databases for eventual reunions. So far, after project launches in Honolulu and Los Angeles, organizers have collected about 1,000 names, Suh said.

The project is an offshoot of the Eugene Bell Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit group that has helped build health clinics in North Korea.

Before any reunions can take place, however, organizers will have to win over skeptical government officials in the U.S. and North Korea, said U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who is backing the project.

Kirk, who has visited North Korea several times, said he met with North Korean officials at the United Nations and with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the initiative.

Kirk said some policymakers in the Bush administration are skeptical about the reunions because they don't want North Korea to use U.S. families as propaganda tools. Other officials said the families' plights must take a back seat to negotiations over nuclear weapons.

"In our calmer, more rational moments, I hope we see that this presents a positive opportunity for both sides," Kirk said. "Our policy with North Korea should not just be one which a few people in the Pentagon and State Department work on. This concerns the futures of thousands of American citizens."

After years of pessimism, Lee said the project has renewed her hope. She plans to join the database in the slim chance that at least one of her children, all in their 50s or 60s, is still alive in North Korea.